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The first book in Lauren DeStefano’s new series, The Internment Chronicles, is published today in the UK and is already getting some fantastic reviews! Scroll down to read what it’s all about…

Morgan Stockhour knows getting too close to the edge of Internment, the floating city in the clouds where she lives, can lead to madness. Even though her older brother, Lex, was a Jumper, Morgan vows never to end up like him. If she ever wonders about the ground, and why it is forbidden, she takes solace in her best friend, Pen, and in Basil, the boy she’s engaged to marry.

Then a murder, the first in a generation, rocks the city. With whispers swirling and fear on the wind, Morgan can no longer stop herself from investigating, especially once she meets Judas. Betrothed to the victim, he is the boy being blamed for the murder, but Morgan is convinced of his innocence. Secrets lay at the heart of Internment, but nothing can prepare Morgan for what she will find – or whom she will lose.

This autumn, Lauren DeStefano’s brand new utopian series, The Internment Chronicles, kicks off with Perfect Ruin. Scroll down for your chance to see the beautiful cover!

On the floating city of Internment, you can be anything you dream. Unless you approach the edge.

Morgan Stockhour knows getting too close to the edge of Internment, the floating city in the clouds where she lives, can lead to madness. Even though her older brother, Lex, was a Jumper, Morgan vows never to end up like him. If she ever wonders about the ground, and why it is forbidden, she takes solace in her best friend, Pen, and in Basil, the boy she’s engaged to marry.

Then a murder, the first in a generation, rocks the city. With whispers swirling and fear on the wind, Morgan can no longer stop herself from investigating, especially once she meets Judas. Betrothed to the victim, he is the boy being blamed for the murder, but Morgan is convinced of his innocence. Secrets lay at the heart of Internment, but nothing can prepare Morgan for what she will find – or whom she will lose.

Perfect Ruin is published in the UK on 3rd October 2013 and is available to pre-order NOW in trade paperback or eBook.

Last night, we got news that Fever by Lauren DeStefano is going to hit the New York Times bestseller list at #6!

Read on to find out more about Lauren.

1. Where do you get the inspiration for your novels from?

Simply put, inspiration is everywhere. If I stop looking for it, it shows itself.

2. Who or what has been the biggest influence on your writing?

This is truly a tough question. Since I’ve loved to tell stories for as long as can remember, I can only assume genetics are to thank for that in some way. But as I grew into my teens and early twenties and began to take writing more seriously, a few authors shattered the way I saw literature, and while they aren’t what made me a storyteller, they made me a braver one. Those authors, in no particular order, are Sidney Sheldon, Joy Kogawa, Margaret Atwood and T.S. Eliot.

3. Describe a typical day when you’re working on a novel.

I like to sleep as late as humanly possible. This is very important, because it gives me the energy I’ll need to procrastinate as late into the day as I can. Then I typically write until I start to hear the first birds of the morning. There’s a lot of snacking, thinking, and playing with the tape dispenser mixed in with all of that.

4. Which of your characters do you enjoy writing the most?

Usually it’s the antagonistic ones. One of the reasons I enjoyed writing from Rhine’s perspective was that she was meeting her husband, father-in-law and sister wives for the first time, and since she had no idea what these people were going to be like, I had no idea either. Vaughn, Linden and Cecily in particular left her with a sour first impression, and I had a lot of fun getting to know who they really were and coming to realize they weren’t what they seemed.

5. How do you research your novels?

It’s a good mix of life experience, things I was taught in school, and Google University.

Sometimes the tiniest detail sparks an internet search that leads to another thing, and another, and what takes a reader fifteen seconds to read may have taken me over an hour to research.

6. If you weren’t a writer, what would you be doing?

The way I can’t stand a blank page, I also can’t stand a blank wall. I love, love, love to decorate spaces and I’d probably have gone into that.

7. Who are your favourite authors?/What are your favourite books?

My heart will always belong to T.S. Eliot for his dreamlike poetry.

8. What made you fall in love with Science Fiction/Fantasy?

I’m in love with words. I’ll follow them wherever they take me.

9. What advice would you give to any aspiring writers?

Don’t pay too much attention to advice. I had to disregard nearly everything I was taught about writing before I could complete the first page of anything worthwhile.

For 17-year-old Rhine Ellery, a daring escape from a suffocating polygamous marriage is only the beginning…

Fever follows on from Wither, the first book in the Chemical Garden trilogy. In Wither 16-year-old Rhine Ellery is kidnapped and sold as a bride to Linden, a rich young man with a dying wife. Even though he is kind to her, Rhine is desperate to escape her gilded cage – and Linden’s cruel father. With the help of Gabriel, a servant she is growing dangerously attracted to, Rhine attempts to break free, in what little time she has left. This is now available in a beautiful paperback format.

The second in Lauren DeStefano’s The Chemical Garden Trilogy was also released today and Fever looks to be a guaranteed pleaser. The Handmaid’s Tale for a newgeneration. In Fever we see Rhine heading back to Manhattan on a quest to find her twin brother with the aid of fellow escapee Gabriel, but a world where women live to 20 and men die at 25, they soon find themselves out of their depth. We are sure you are just as eager as we were to get your hands on this second instalment from Lauren DeStafano and so we are offering you the chance to win yourself a copy – 5 up for grabs! Just let us know via twitter (@_thevoyager_) or email (thevoyager@harpercollins.co.uk) what you loved about Wither! If you haven’t read Wither yet, email or Tweet us why you want to and we will send 5 copies out to the people that persuade us!

‘Lauren DeStefano crafts an all too believable future. I loved the world, the romance, the writing – exactly the kind of book I’ve been craving to read.’

Carrie Ryan, New York Times bestselling author of The Forest of Hands and Teeth

About four years ago, before the days of Rhine and Wither World, before I had a social media platform and when I was just a bright-eyed dreamer with a hard drive full of unmarketable manuscripts, I received a phone call. That phone call was an offer of representation from an agent. And at the end of that phone call, my shiny new agent asked if I had a website. I didn’t. She asked me to start one. And so, this blog was born.

And from that very first day, before I had a book deal or any readers, I knew there were certain topics that I’d never blog about. Politics was one of them. Body image was another. The reason I stay away from those types of posts is because I don’t have much faith in my own finesse. There are other bloggers who introduce these topics in a way that is fabulous and thorough. Whereas I ramble a lot, give books away, and show you pictures of how ugly my bathroom was before I exorcised the pink from it.

Today I’m breaking my own restraint to blog about this topic. Maybe it’s fitting, in light of the whole SOPA censorship debacle. Maybe now is the perfect time to say the sorts of things I wouldn’t normally say.

The topic is body image. It’s snowing today, and I thought I’d curl up on the couch and indulge in a little TV before diving into my line edits for Book 3. I flipped through the DVR lineup and decided to watch the latest episode of The Biggest Loser. I was only half paying attention, clicking around on the internet as I usually do, when I heard one of the contestants say that she had dreams of being a writer. She went on to say, “How are you gonna go into these publishing houses and be like ‘Hey, you wanna publish my book’ when you’re the fat girl?”

This ripped my attention from the computer screen. I hit rewind, sure I misheard her. I played it back three times, not just astounded but horrified by what was happening on my television. Was this aspiring writer really citing her weight as the reason she felt a publishing house wouldn’t take her seriously?

We can’t have this. This is not okay.

The most devastating part of this sentiment is that, in addition to this young woman believing her weight is congruent with her success as an author, millions of viewers nationwide have just heard it. How many of those millions are writers? How many are going to feel that they cannot take a step towards their dreams until they’ve lost a few pounds?

Actually, scratch that. How many of those millions have dreams they now fear can’t be attained because of their weight?

If I’m going to go into full disclosure here, my weight is something I have been conscious of for most of my life. It’s something I struggled with in my teens and something I struggle with now. I gained a bunch of weight after selling Wither, between the pre-publication stress and having a job that required movement only from the wrists to the fingertips. I’ve since lost all of that weight, and I know that it is as emotionally taxing as it is physical. And I’m not alone; I can’t count on both hands the conversations I’ve had with friends over the years about calories in vs. calories out, and abdominal crunches and weight watchers points and diet soda. It’s a significant part of my life. And it has nothing to do with my ability to dream or my determination or my worth as a person. It took me years and years to understand this. I used to think of myself as a work in progress. I used to think that I would have a good life when I lost weight. I’m so thankful that I learned the difference between having a goal and having self worth. My wish is for everyone to learn that difference, because it’s a liberating day when you do.

For this Biggest Loser contestant, her weight is something about herself that she would like to change. I can understand that, because my weight is something I am perpetually working to change. And for someone else, it’s another issue entirely. Maybe you think you’re too timid, or too rude, or too tall, or you think you have two mismatched ears—whatever it is. There is nothing wrong with wanting to change the things we don’t like about ourselves; in fact it can boost our self-esteem to know we’re doing something healthy for ourselves. But it becomes a serious problem when we think we are substandard until that change is made. If you’re a writer, write. Write because it’s your dream and because it’s what you love. Write because you deserve to have dreams and it is your right to work for them.

There’s no scale when you step through the door of a publishing house. I can tell you firsthand that there’s just a security guard and an elevator.

You have to believe that you are good enough right now, today, because losing weight or getting an earlobe tuck or dyeing your hair isn’t going to do that. When you look in the mirror, it’s dangerous to dream of The Flawless You. What you should see is your face, your shoulders. You should acknowledge the freckles you may not like or the hair that flips the wrong way. You should know that your tools and your weapons and your mind are all staring back at you. You should be in awe of the power you possess over your own destiny. You aren’t substandard. You are amazing. The person staring back at you in the mirror is the person who is going to go out there and grab those dreams by the freaking balls.

The PB of Wither and TPB of Fever are publishing this Thursday. Buy them at all good bookshops.